Microsoft Stumbles Through Xbox One Announcement

Paul Tassi
, ContributorNews and opinion about video games, technology and the internetOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

I just wrapped up my live coverage of the Xbox One reveal, an event that was half as long as most thought it would be, and one hour longer than it should have been.

Meaning, this shouldn't have been an event in the first place.

The Xbox One announcement was an hour long, though really only 45 minutes if you don't count the 25% of the presentation devoted solely to being a singular ad for the (non-Xbox exclusive) Call of Duty: Ghosts. The presentation veered wildly around from topic to topic, starting strong, but finishing prematurely before nearly any important questions about the system were answered.

As many expected, the Xbox presentation opened with a reveal of the console's name, the Xbox One, and a full-on showcasing of the console itself and its controller, meant to be a direct leapfrogging of
Sony who never showed their box during their two hour reveal.

Immediately after, the word "living room" was heard a multitude of times as we learned how the Xbox One is more than a game console, it's a TV tuner and cable box. The strongest portion of the presentation showed how a user can switch between watching TV and gaming instantly through the (thankfully included) Kinect, and even browse channels with listings without a need for the remote.

Things went awry from there.

In such a short amount of time, there were a lot of different aspects of the system they tried to cram in before the hour was up. They talked about new EA Sports titles and fantasy sports integration. Then they pivoted to a Forza tech demo and a confusing live-action/animated teaser trailer for a game called
Quantum Break. Then they went back to TV and sports, offering yet another proclamation about fantasy football integration with the NFL, and then Stephen Spielberg showed up to announce he was supervising a live action Halo TV series on Xbox Live.

Then of course, they closed out the presentation by giving Activision 15 minutes to showcase Call of Duty: Ghosts, which should be noted is a previously announced, non-exclusive title for the Xbox. It gave us a glimpse into the graphical capabilities of the Xbox One, but mostly it was a commentary on what passes for innovation in the series these days, as designers bragged about how fish now dart out of your way during underwater sequences. Also, get this, you can now customize your character in multiplayer! Big moves, and certainly worth devoting 25% of the presentation to singular non-exclusive title.

The big questions answered were all in the first few minutes. What does it look like? What is it called? Does it come with Kinect?

But even bigger ones weren't remotely addressed. Does the system require an internet connection? Does it play used games? How much does it cost? Will Xbox Live remain a monthly fee? And so on. One question that HAS been answered already in the wake of the presentation is that no, the Xbox One is NOT backward compatible.

(Update: Outside of the presentation,
Microsoft has now said that an internet connection is not required (but with cloud-based offloading functionality, always-on could be optional for developers), and all games DO have to be installed to the hard drives, and used games will likely require a fee to be activated.)

I don't understand why this press conference needed to exist. Sony's PlayStation 4 reveal was well ahead of E3 and spent two hours going over in great deal a huge number of aspects and games for the system. They kept some information under wraps for E3, like the price and console design, but they showed us a lot. Microsoft instead had their reveal mere weeks before E3, and slapped together a presentation that had no sense of flow to it at all, and didn't answer the vast majority of questions people had about the system, nor did it show many games.

I am very impressed with the name, the design and the cable box-like abilities the Xbox One has. I am not impressed with how this reveal was conceived and organized, and think it was a mistake. Even if they're dominating the news cycle right now, I have a hunch most of the coverage from press and fans won't be terribly glowing.

If you're only going to take an hour to announce a product this big, you can't jump from item to item with nothing connecting them together. You can't announce a video game console showing barely five minutes of in-game footage across three titles.

Hopefully Microsoft learns some lessons here in time for their E3 presentation. We're living in an age of teaser trailers for actual trailers, and that's what this press conference felt like the vast majority of the time.